In information technology (IT) infrastructure, storage systems may be deployed by respective service providers, each providing storage services to multiple tenants. The IT infrastructure used to implement such storage systems may comprise multiple storage arrays and associated processing platforms, including processing platforms comprising distributed virtual infrastructure or other types of cloud infrastructure. Relative to a given company, organization or other enterprise, such service provider storage systems may be internal or external. An example of an internal service provider storage system may comprise an IT group of an enterprise that acts as a service provider to enterprise users. External service providers may comprise entities that are otherwise unrelated to the enterprise but nonetheless provide storage services to the enterprise users.
Arrangements of this type can be problematic in that there is typically little or no global control provided across the IT infrastructure resources used to implement the multiple storage systems of the various service providers. Instead, it is common for each service provider storage system to be separately provisioned and managed locally, without regard to the storage systems of other service providers sharing the IT infrastructure. Moreover, such localized provisioning and management is often insufficiently automated, and therefore relies heavily on labor-intensive manual oversight by administrative personnel.
It is therefore apparent that a need exists for improved techniques for provisioning and management of storage systems in IT infrastructure.